The present invention relates to steering axle assemblies and, more particularly, to a power steering axle assembly for industrial trucks or the like.
Vehicles such as industrial trucks and the like must be very manueverable in order to function efficiently. In an attempt to provide this efficiency, a number of steering axle assemblies have been designed in which they all basically include a hydraulic cylinder, a piston, tie rods and steering knuckles coupling the steering wheels of the vehicle to the tie rods. The tie rods are movable by the cylinder and piston arrangement so as to rotate the steering knuckles and, hence, the wheels about a vertical axis.
These prior art arrangements usually have design constraints such that one or more advantageous features must be sacrificed totally or at least to some degree to provide an assembly which has other advantages. For example, it is desirable to design a steering axle assembly which is (1) compact, (2) easy to service, (3) easy to manufacture, and (4) simple and inexpensive. It is also desirable to produce a system which has more rigid parts which are immovable so as to prevent distortion of these parts, and to steer the wheels about a central pivot between the wheels to make more efficient use of the forces acting to steer the wheels. Until now, such a steering assembly having all these advantages has not been available.